Muhammad Abu Shamala

Mohammed Ibrahim Salah Abu Shamala (1974-21 August 2014) was a leader of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, serving as the sub-commander of the southern Gaza Strip.

Biography
Mohammed Ibrahim Salah Abu Shamala was born in 1974 in the Yibna refugee camp in Rafah, Gaza Strip. In the early 1990s, he joined the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas along with Mohammed Deif and Raed al-Atar and became deputy commander of the brigade at Rafah and was also made a member of the Supreme Military Council of the Qassam Brigades. He was held for nine months in Israeli prisons and for three and a half years in Palestinian Authority ones. In 2003 he survived an aerial bombardment of his car and fled an Israeli attack on his home in 2004, both during the Second Intifada. He built a large-scale military system in Rafah, leading to Israel targeting him during Operation Protective Edge.

On 21 August 2014 he was killed in an airstrike with Raed al-Atar and Mohammed Barhoum by the Israeli Air Force in Rafah during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.